Up to now to extract the edible part of a pineapple for immediate consumption, generally the fruit is sectioned longitudinally to form quarters. It is also known to cut the fruit into transverse slices after separating the pulp from the peel and removing the hard or fibrous central section or core with a view to preserving the pulp. All these operations are carried out manually and have the drawback of being time- consuming if all traces of the peel are to be perfectly removed.
There has been proposed in French printed patent application No. 2,358,839 a device comprising two concentric cylindrical blades. The inner cutting blades separates the pulp or flesh from the core, and the outer blade separates the peel from the pulp or flesh. This device operates by blades traversing the mass of the pineapple, including the end of the peel which is remote from the end where the blades enter the pineapple, and latter end must then be removed manually. Further, the remainder of the peel removed forms a sort of open-ended tube which is unusable. Moreover, known methods do not permit part of the fruit to be kept in its peel after only part of its pulp or flesh has been removed.